Case C-353/95 P
Tiercé Ladbroke SA
v
Commission of the European Communities
‛Competition — State aid — Levy on bets taken on horse-races — Transfer of resources to an undertaking established in another Member State’
Opinion of Advocate General Cosmas delivered on 13 May 1997 I-7009
Judgment of the Court, 9 December 1997 I-7026
Summary of the Judgment
State aid — Definition — Financial conditions, determined by the public authorities, governing the assistance given in collecting bets by the body operating betting on horse-races in one Member State to the equivalent body in another Member State — No advantage for the beneficiary — Excluded
(EC Treaty, Art. 92(1))
A measure cannot be classified as State aid within the meaning of Article 92(1) of the Treaty if it procures no advantage for its supposed beneficiary.
Since bets on Belgian races are not identical to bets on French races, the existence of an advantage for the purposes of Article 92(1) of the Treaty cannot be deduced automatically from the difference of treatment to which they are subject.
In totalizator betting the stakes constitute a common pool which, after various levies, is distributed amongst the winners equally, whatever the origin of the bets. The share of the stakes paid out to the winners thus cannot vary according to the State in which the bets were placed. The proper functioning of such a system can therefore be ensured only if the rate of any levies which may be imposed on the bets laid on a horserace is that of the State in which the race is run.
Furthermore, where the system of statutory and fiscal retentions on bets on horseraces organized in one Member State was adopted in the light of the specific regulatory and economic conditions prevailing with regard to horseracing and totalizator betting in that State, there can be no requirement to transpose that system to totalizator betting on horseraces run in another Member State, which are organized under different regulatory and economic conditions.